Topic: Do you feel AAA gaming is irrelevant?

yeAAAh

It's not that AAA is irrelevant, it's that we're coming to realize that games don't need to be AAA to be good .

I didn't mean for it to be personal, but I still hold that coming to that assumption is just as bad as MisterManGuy's assumption that people only like AAA games because "the corporation said you suck if you don't buy our product." (Which I'll admit, I didn't see before. I kinda got in the habit of just skimming his posts) That's just negating someone else's beliefs, which is the very definition of being closed-minded. It does not make for an actually healthy discussion. If you see actual evidence that the person may not believe what they are saying (i.e. inconsistancies), then you're free to call them into question, but not before. I won't say there's no such thing as a "pack mentality", but it's one of those things you address when it comes up, since it's not exactly something you can prevent...

No it's not irrelevant. The games industry has just gone the same way as the movie industry so that the most interesting creativity doesn't necessarily happen with the biggest budget stuff anymore.
Back in the early console days, and right up until the kind of PS2 era, that wasn't necessarily true. Most of the innovation was coming from the big budget stuff. It's a sad but possibly inevitable progression.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. The bigger the budget, the less creative more game studios (like movie studios) tend to be. That's not saying they're all bad. But instead of making a name for themselves with quality/creativity, they just care about pretty graphics and easy selling-franchises (anyone tired of Super Hero movies yet?).

They're definitely not irrelevant. TBH, I think they've become TOO relevant. To the point where 80-90% of quality games in the future will just be a blip on the radar because the industry will be flooded with Call of Duty's, Final Fantasys, and Assasin's Creeds all demanding millions upon millions of sales to be considered succesful.

No.

This.

@R_Champ While they can't take take as many risks, that doesn't mean they don't care about quality or making a great game. I would say most of them do and really try to make a great game honesty. And the reason most buy big blockbusters is because they think their quality.

This.

I'd say it's becoming irrelevant. The current AAA game ecosystem is driven too much by a few genres aimed at a tiny percentage of gamers, and is very much in danger of becoming as irrelevant as most comic books are in the US.

Add how it seems few developers in this market seem to actually want to make games rather than barely interactive movies, and the higher costs to make said games, and I suspect what's left of this market will implode before too long.

Define irrelevant?

If you mean it isn't still the primary games that the general public will buy at 60 dollars, lolololololol no.

If you mean gamers can ignore 75% of the biggest titles and miss literally nothing, yes. Outside of a few Wii U games, I entirely ignored AAA gaming last year. I feel like outside of Shadow of Mordor, Wolfenstein, Dragon Age, Sunset Overdrive and MAYBE Watch Dogs, I missed basically nothing.

Problem is, it isn't the mainstream market. The mainstream market at the moment is arguably the more casual games on smartphones and the like. The triple A gaming market is pretty much a very narrowly defined demographic mostly consisting of teens and people in their twenties and early thirties.

I wouldn't say it's irrelevant. Especially for Microsoft and Sony, AAA developers are the most influential advertisement for their platforms. Without them, both companies would also lack a large chunk of system-sellers, no matter how good or bad some of them may be. Essentially, MS and Sony vastly depend on them, but for Nintendo, the relevance is completely overbloated. The majority of AAA fans aren't interested in Nintendo games, anyway, so they're like book fans in a comic shop: right market, but wrong core audience.

What do you mean? i mean sure there are concerns of being bloated and samey, but a large majority of the best selling video games coming out are still triple AAA.

That cannot be taken over 1:1 for Nintendo, though. Nintendo themselves are very dangerous competitors on their consoles, making it a risky deal to release AAA titles on it. That, and Nintendo is a legendary developer to begin with, meaning that their reputation makes it difficult to even advertise non-Nintendo games properly. Just look at the ad campaings for 3DS and WiiU: barely any advertised games on either platform is from 3rd-party dev's.
Hell, it's never even mentioned in Smash ads that NamcoBandai was involved.

Why would AAA gaming NOT relevant anymore?
Most casuals (read: people not super into gaming) don't know a good chunk of indies exist due to lack of exposure.

Whatever's most relevant is generally what becomes AAA. What's irrelevant doesn't last very long in AAA. When AAA gaming becomes irrelevant, so does gaming as a whole.
While things to get overhyped at times, I have to disagree with most of what you've said. Many great games are AAA. And everthing gets hyped up to an extreme amount at times (not just games). Honestly, irrelevant is the wrong word for what you mean here.